100 THE HERON OF CASTLE CREEK 



never swerved in his thunderous career, the 

 palfrey was obedient to the slightest sign ; and, 

 though at first the boy seldom struck the sway- 

 ing effigy, misses became fewer and still fewer, 

 till the mark was changed for the life-sized 

 image of a knight in rusty helm and coat of mail, 

 and with a rusty shield held slantwise beneath 

 the visor. To hit the casque with such accuracy 

 as to snap its light fastenings from the collar- 

 plate, and bear away the head-piece hanging by 

 the vizor from the point of the lance, had for 

 weeks been the boy's ambition. 



But Renoult delighted most of all in the sports 

 contrived for him by the two old bowmen who 

 were now superintending his lessons in archery. 

 His mother was a Saxon heiress, and his present 

 companions had been in the service of her family 

 long before she wedded the Earl. Perhaps, 

 indeed, it was because of this that the Earl, a 

 haughty Norman, looked tolerantly on exercises 

 which, at heart, he scorned as unbefitting a 

 youth whose weapons in the fray would be, not 

 the foot-soldier's longbow, but the axe, the mace, 

 the sword, and the lance. For the powerful 

 feudal lord loved the gentle Saxon lady, and, 

 while he rested in his Castle from the arduous 

 service of his King, nothing pleased him better 

 than to sit beside her in the bower, and watch the 

 smiles that wreathed her beautiful features as 



